The present invention relates generally to an apparatus for accessing a boat, and particularly to a ladder apparatus attachable to a boat ladder for boarding animals from the water into the boat.
It is common for animals to accompany their owners on boat trips. During these trips, the human owners as well as the animals, choose to enter the water. Reboarding the boat from the water is a challenge for many reasons, including forces by currents and waves, as well as lack of ground support on which to push off to re-board the boat. This is especially difficult for animals, such as dogs, that cannot make use of the boat ladder that is designed to assist humans. Furthermore, animals, such as dogs, are unable to pull themselves up onto the boat as humans can. Therefore, it is often the owners themselves who have the difficult task of retrieving their animal from the water. Not only is this a challenge, but it also involves getting wet and is potentially dangerous for both the humans and the animals.
As such, there is a need for a boarding device to assist house pet animals, such as dogs, onto the boat from the surrounding water. There are such devices presently available, but these devices are unstable, inconvenient, unable to attach to different boat ladder designs, and may be difficult to configure for use and transport and attach or detach. In addition, the design of many prior devices makes those devices susceptible to high external forces. The external forces are due to the high surface area of the devices in the planes of the water movement and may cause high degrees of movement relative to the boat ladder. This can be intimidating to the animal and may discourage use. This movement can also result in damage to the boat ladder and/or damage to the boarding apparatus, with the potential for injuring the animal. Thus, there remains a need for a stable, convenient, simple, and universally adaptable animal boarding apparatus, with a design that minimizes the presence and effect of external forces.